The New York City Housing Authority has been named the city’s worst landlord by the city’s own Public Advocate.
There’s nothing shocking about the fact that public housing really sucks, nor that a city department that houses about 500,000 of New York residents is miles worse than New York’s slumlords.
It is exactly what you would expect, really.
But Zohran Mamdani is determined to seize as much private property as possible and place it under the city’s management, so he has come up with a brilliant plan to square the circle.
Technocratic progressivism (which did have a number of major 20th century accomplishments) is dead.
Mamdani isn’t going to even pretend to try to improve the MTA or NYCHA.
Instead, he will focus on private sector shakedowns and Leftist theater-kid performance art. https://t.co/IfKzziqZwy
— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) February 16, 2026
Mamdani is putting together propaganda set pieces where people his administration recruits come to meetings to complain about how awful their landlords are. You have to trot out the sob stories, and the best way to do that is spoonfeed The Narrative to Pravda.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “rental ripoff” hearings will ban testimony from public housing tenants — even though the government agency running the units is routinely called the “worst” in the five boroughs.
The Democratic socialist’s administration will host its first complaint session on Feb. 26, but the much-touted program will only focus on renters and landlords in privately owned buildings and not the half a million tenants of the New York City Housing Authority.
Property owners fumed about the city dodging questions about the public units while also encouraging tenants in private property to attend the sessions to testify about landlord abuses such as “rental junk fees” for amenities including keeping pets.
“The city’s own tenants — those living in public housing — are demanding a real plan to improve their living conditions,” said Humberto Lopes, CEO of Gotham Housing Alliance. “It appears the Mamdani administration woke up to their own hypocrisy.
“If these hearings were truly about holding bad landlords accountable, the over 500,000 residents in NYCHA would be able to meaningfully participate,” Lopes added. “This is clearly the city trying to distract from its own failures while putting on a show, instead of having a real conversation with property owners, renters, NYCHA residents, and everyone else about how to improve housing for all.”
This is brilliant, in an evil sort of way. Gather all the disenchanted tenants of private landlords and chide them for charging pet deposits, and getting people all ginned up about how they are getting screwed.
At the same time, hide the fact that the city is widely acknowledged to be the worst landlord in the city. And of course they must, because Mamdani’s plan is to recruit tenants to complain about landlords, swamp them with fines, and then seize the buildings when they can’t keep up.
It’s a tougher sell if the majority of complaints are directed at the public housing authority. Most people would take their chances with their private landlord rather than let the bureaucrats run their lives.
It is literally impossible for the majority of complaints not to be aimed at the city housing authority. No other landlord manages nearly as many units, and especially not as many low-income units that are poorly maintained. And the city is notorious for lying about maintenance.
NYCHA is infamously featured as the city’s worst landlord in reports put out by the city Public Advocate’s Office.
The agency has been placed under a federal monitor since 2019 over hazardous conditions and other scandals such as falsely certifying inspections.
Mamdani defended focusing the hearings solely on privately owned apartments.
I mean, c’mon, man. Mamdani wants to turn the management of most of the housing in NYC over to a group of people who were trained in property management in Cuba or Venezuela. (Not really, just metaphorically).
Why is it that Mamdani’s dog and pony shows will get wall-to-wall coverage in New York media, with only the New York Post taking a shot at his deception?
We can only guess.
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